Paradox of Deontology

The Paradox of Deontology
1997





Consider a case in which, if some person A1 injures, lies to, kills
or in some other way violates another person P1, she will set in motion a
chain of events that will prevent two other persons, A2 and A3, from
similarly violating two other persons P2 and P3. Intuitively, it is wrong
in such a case for A1 to violate P1: A1 has an obligation not to violate
others just as A2 and A3 do, and prevention of their violations of P2 and
P3 does not justify A1 in violating her obligation to P1. Rights, for
example, are commonly understood as generating such obligations not to
violate even in certain cases in which such a violation can prevent more
such violations from happening.(see RIGHTS) Many moral theories, including
deontological theories (see DEONTOLOGY), attempt to provide rationales for
such intuitive moral restrictions.

Yet even defenders of such restrictions typically allow that A1's
violation is not a worse thing to happen, even by A1's own lights, than
A2's or A3's, and that two such violations are a worse thing to happen than
one. Such 'deontological' restrictions are thus prohibitions against
performing actions that will prevent worse overall states of affairs from
happening. Because such restrictions prohibit the promotion of states of
affairs evaluated as best from a standpoint that is 'neutral' among agents,
they are also characterized as 'agent-relative' restrictions (see AGENT-
RELATIVE VS AGENT-NEUTRAL). The claim that deontology is paradoxical is the
claim that such moral restrictions are paradoxical, their initial intuitive
appeal notwithstanding. If lying, for example, is bad, shouldn't a
plausible moral theory at least permit someone to lie when doing so will
prevent more such equally damaging lies from being told? In general, how
can it be wrong to do something bad if this prevents something worse from
happening? Without a plausible response to such challenges, deontological
restrictions come to be surrounded by an air of paradox.

A classic presentation of the paradoxicality challenge is offered by
Robert Nozick:

How can a concern for…nonviolation…lead to the refusal to
violate…even
when this would prevent other more extensive violations? What is
the rationale
for placing…nonviolation…as a …constraint upon action instead of
including
it solely as a goal of one's actions? (Nozick 1974: 30)

Nozick's presentation of the charge of paradox showcases two common
features. First, it points out that maximizing good outcomes and
minimizing bad outcomes are goals that provide reasons for action, and it
demands a rationale for any allegedly decisive moral reasons not to pursue
such goals. Second, it suggests that any value, including rights, can
plausibly be incorporated into such goals. If rights are intrinsically
valuable, isn't it a better outcome upon which fewer rights are violated?
How, then, can it be morally wrong for one who values rights to minimize
their violation?

Nozick believes that a rationale for such restrictions, hence for
dissipating the air of paradox that surrounds them, is provided by the
Kantian principle that individuals are ends and not means only. But Samuel
Scheffler suggests that Nozick has inadvertently undermined any such
rationale. Nozick appeals to the inviolability of persons, but Scheffler
points out that in the cases in question "someone…is going to be violated":

Either A1 will harm P1 or five other agents will identically harm
P2…P6. Either way,…some inviolable person is violated. Why isn't
it at least permissible to prevent the violation of five people by
violating one? (Scheffler 1982: 88)

Scheffler suggests that Nozick's defense of deontological restrictions
appeals to "the disvalue of certain features of violations of constraints,"
but argues that in the cases in question "a greater number of equally
weighty violations…will ensue" if the agent does not commit the violation.
(Scheffler 1982: 88) The rationale for avoiding such violations in
standard cases, e.g. the disvalue of rights violations happening, would
appear to be a rationale for violating in cases of deontological
restrictions. The obvious value-based reason not to violate (e.g. to lie)
in standard cases is a reason to violate in these cases, but the
deontologist persists in prohibiting such violations. To avoid the charge
that such moral restrictions are paradoxical, they must be provided with a
plausible rationale. But what reasons are there not to violate that can
decisively outweigh the reasons to violate that are grounded in appeal to
the value of resulting states of affairs?

The charge that deontology is paradoxical is thus a charge against any
theory that includes fundamental restrictions upon promoting the best thing
that can happen, whether deontological or not. Standard consequentialist
moral theories (see CONSEQUENTIALISM) avoid this charge of paradox because
they deny that there are such restrictions. Consequentialists hold that
agents are always morally required to perform the action that promotes the
best overall state of affairs, hence they require the agent to lie, all
other things being equal, when this will prevent more equally damaging lies
from being told. But one need not endorse consequentialism to generate
such a paradox: anyone who adopts what T. M. Scanlon has characterized as a
teleological theory of value, upon which "the primary bearers of value are
states of affairs," (Scanlon 1998: 79) will find such restrictions
paradoxical. Advocates of such a teleological theory can (and often do)
deny the consequentialist claim that all morally relevant considerations
are based in the overall value of states of affairs, maintaining that the
evaluation of states of affairs as better or worse for me can also be a
source of reasons. It can be better for me if the typhoon misses my boat
and heads towards the populated island, but it is better overall if it
veers towards me instead. Considerations of what is better or worse for me
certainly seem to provide me with reasons. If these reasons are morally
relevant, then it seems plausible that in cases in which they have
sufficient weight we will not be morally required to bring about the best
overall state of affairs. But deontological restrictions will still be
paradoxical on such approaches, at least at the foundational level, because
they are restrictions both upon doing what is best for me and upon doing
what is best overall, e.g. against lying to benefit myself as well as
against lying to prevent other lies from being told. Deontological
restrictions purport to be based upon impartial considerations, but their
impartiality cannot be based in the impartial evaluation of states of
affairs – they are impartial restrictions upon acting to promote states of
affairs that are (partially) best for me, and (impartially) best overall.


Typical arguments for the paradoxicality of deontological restrictions
demonstrate that no plausible rationale for such restrictions can be
provided through appeal to the value of states of affairs, and conclude
that no plausible rationale can be provided. Yet if the case for paradox
is a product of accepting and deploying such a teleological theory of
value, rejection of such a theory of value may well dissolve the paradox.
Recent defenses of deontological restrictions thus often proceed by
rejecting the teleological theory's assumption that the impartial
evaluation of actions as right or wrong is based entirely in the evaluation
of states of affairs as better or worse. Such defenders maintain that
although evaluations of states of affairs, e.g. as better or worse for me
or better or worse overall, may well play a role in the evaluation of
actions, the reasons articulated through appeal to such evaluations are
merely some morally relevant impartial reasons among others. In cases in
which these other non-teleological reasons are decisive, defenders follow
Thomas Nagel in maintaining that "although in some sense things will be
better, what happens will be better…I will have done something worse."
(Nagel 1986: 180)

Such defenders of deontological restrictions readily grant that they
come to seem paradoxical within the context of a teleological theory of
value. But they argue that this appearance of paradoxicality reflects
negatively not upon restrictions themselves, but upon the teleological
theory of value. They need not deny that it is always right to do what's
best; they can maintain that it is always right to do what it is best to
do, the action supported by decisively good reasons. But they deny that
what it is best to do is always what promotes the best overall thing that
can happen. Thus, the defender of restrictions may recognize that we have
both impartial moral reasons to keep promises and impartial moral reasons
to prevent promises from being broken. But in cases in which the moral
reasons to keep promises are decisive, the best thing to do will be to keep
my promise even though others will then break their own. No paradox
results if, as our initial intuitions suggest, only some of the reasons
that are relevant to the determination of what it is best to do are
provided by appeal to overall evaluations of states of affairs. For such a
defender of deontological restrictions, the appearance of paradox results
from interpreting the platitude that it is always right to do what's best
through appeal to an implausible theory of value upon which 'best' is
interpreted as the best overall state of affairs rather than the best
overall action, the action supported by the decisively good reasons.

A complete response to the charge of paradox requires an alternative to
the teleological theory of value, a theory of value upon which not all
fundamental reasons are based in the value of states of affairs. Barbara
Herman and others have argued that Kant (see KANT, IMMANUEL) is properly
read as providing just such an alternative theory of value. (Herman 1993)
Scanlon has offered his "buck passing" account as an alternative to the
teleological theory of value, (Scanlon 1998: 95-107) and Stephen Darwall
has articulated yet another such alternative theory of value through
developing an account of second-personal reasons. (Darwall 2006) Though
some such account is a necessary component of any complete response to the
charge of paradox, it is noteworthy that the case for the paradoxicality of
restrictions sometimes inadvertently appears to presuppose the legitimacy
of just such an alternative theory of value. Such a case, recall,
maintains that if rights are intrinsically valuable, we should minimize the
number of rights that are violated overall. But to recognize rights as
intrinsically valuable is to recognize that agents have non-teleological
moral reasons not to violate other agents, reasons that conflict with
whatever reasons an agent might have to promote the best overall state of
affairs. It becomes unclear why an air of paradox does not cling to such a
critic of restrictions, who recognizes rights as intrinsically valuable
restrictions upon promoting the best overall state of affairs, but insists
at the same time upon treating the moral relevance of such rights as
exhausted by the appeal to the best overall state of affairs.

The key to dissipating the air of paradox surrounding non-derivative
deontological restrictions is the rejection of a teleological theory of
value, yet there are many considerations that appear to support such a
theory of value. For example, the standard account of desires, as
attitudes towards contents that are properly captured by 'that-clauses'
(e.g. "I desire that I have an apple"), appears to fit better with the
teleological theory than with restriction friendly alternatives.(see
DESIRE) If the objects of desires are states of affairs captured by that-
clauses, then it seems natural to expect reasons to desire to be provided
by appeal to the value of the states of affairs that are the objects of
such desires. Moreover, even though the teleological theory cannot support
deontological restrictions at the foundational level, strategies have been
offered for deriving some form of deontological restriction from
teleological foundations. It nonetheless seems clear that it is within the
context of the teleological theory that deontological restrictions come to
be surrounded by an air of paradox, their original intuitive appeal
notwithstanding. It also seems clear that to provide grounds for rejecting
such a teleological theory would at the same time be to dissipate the air
of paradox surrounding deontological restrictions.

SEE ALSO: RIGHTS; DEONTOLOGY; AGENT-RELATIVE VS AGENT-NEUTRAL;
CONSEQUENTIALISM; KANT, IMMANUEL; DESIRE.



References


Darwall, Stephen 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.

Herman, Barbara 1993. The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.

Nagel, Thomas 1986. The View From Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nozick, Robert 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.

Scanlon, T. M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.

Scheffler, Samuel 1982. The Rejection of Consequentialism. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.



Suggested Readings


Brand-Ballard 2004. "Contractualism and Deontic Restrictions." Ethics, 114:
pp. 269-300

Foot, Philippa 1988. "Utilitarianism and the Virtues," in Samuel Scheffler
(ed.), Consequentialism and Its Critics. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 224-242.

Hurley, Paul 2009. Beyond Consequentialism. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Kagan, Shelly 1989. The Limits of Morality. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

LeBar, Mark 2009. "Virtue Ethics and Deontic Constraints." Ethics, 119: pp.
642-671

McMahon, Christopher 1991. "The Paradox of Deontology." Philosophy and
Public Affairs, 20: pp. 350-377.

Parfit, Derek 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Schroeder, Mark 2007. "Teleology, Agent-Relative Value, and 'Good',"
Ethics, 117: pp. 265-95.